


Protecting Trust

by Ace_of_Spades_400



Series: You and I Together Forever [3]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison x luther bullshit needs to back off, Luther being a good big brother, No Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Siblings, fuck five in particular, he's a little bitch, i love him but also, this is a good christian brother sister relationship, vanya the superhero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:09:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ace_of_Spades_400/pseuds/Ace_of_Spades_400
Summary: One and Seven, the opposite ends of a family that was never meant to function.They will be the only ones to understand what family is meant to be.
Relationships: Luther Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Series: You and I Together Forever [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567024
Comments: 21
Kudos: 360





	Protecting Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Look who's back on their bullshit. Just binged the entirely of Season 2 and while it has no relevance to this story it has re-started my passion for this story I stopped writing uhhhhh six months ago? Yeah that sounds right.
> 
> Final part of Snapshots coming soon as well as the next installment of this series featuring Number Six- who legit had me ugly sobbing this season, if y'all haven't seen it you are not prepared.

Number One notices during their half-hour allotted free time that there is a pattern.

As soon as they are dismissed from lunch, they all rush off to play, but it is always the same.

Two and Six slink out of sight before anyone can notice. Their hands are clenched into fists and their eyes on the floor and they will sit quiet and unseen in some forgotten corner of the old house and play games together. (Sometimes, if he gets too close, he can hear them crying.)

Three and Five put their noses in the air and scoff at the rest of them and don’t even bother to be subtle as they head to their bedrooms, laughing at the rest of them. They roll their eyes and they glare and they read together- quantic fashion and gossip rags both-and they don’t let One get close at all.

Four slinks around like a ghost, quiet and cold and dead-eyed. His eyes never quite focus on any of them, even when they talk to him, and he vanishes like mist whenever One tries to get near. The only time One ever hears him during free-time is if he’s screaming.

Seven doesn’t leave the table until everyone else has. She stands quietly, helping Mom gather up the plates, eyes hidden under the curtain of her bangs but frown clear. She flinches whenever she hears the sharp, cruel laughter of Three and Five.

Usually she plays the violin alone in her room. And One will build model airplanes alone in his.

But today….

“Seven?” he calls, tries to sound gentle and soft.

She still jumps, shoulders rising up defensively to her ears as she looks up at him with her big, wide, frightened, hopeful eyes.

“Do you want to play with me?” he asks, still quiet, still soft

The grin that lights up her face is worth the twenty-minute lecture he gets from father for being too loud.

++

One is watching, frowning, as Two and Three and Five all snarl at each other, defensive and sharp and angry.

Six and Four and Seven all watch quietly. Six and Seven are scared, nervous, Four doesn’t quite seem to care.

One is angry too, is pent up and shaky and running on a high of ‘too much, too much, too much’ that makes his hands shake so he hides them behind his back.

Training had been bad again.

It’s never great, never fun. But it’s for a purpose so they must do it.

(Dad said so. Dad said it was important, said they had to be better, stronger. And if Dad said it….)

But it had been bad and Five was bleeding from a knife Two had not curved in time. And Three was angry on his behalf, voice hoarse from rumors but still screaming.

One had a tiny pinprick of a scratch on his arm but that did not seem so important.

He should step in. Should say something. He was Number One. He was the leader. He was in charge. He needed to get control of this situation.

But he didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to say it. Didn’t know how to cut in on this argument and make it stop.

Seven edges forward, out of Six and Four’s shadows, holding a bandage. She cautiously approaches Five, mouth open but only a tiny squeaking noise coming out.

“Five…” too quiet, too soft

Five turns and pushes her harshly to the ground, “Stay out of this!” he snarls

Three glares down on her with fire in her eyes, “No one asked you Seven!” she spits

Two scoffs, “N-N-Now there’s three useless losers.”

Seven ducks her head, shoulders hunching, eyes welling with tears behind her bangs.

One sees red.

Not Seven. Not tiny, weak, timid little Seven.

“ENOUGH!” he snaps, shoulders back, chest puffed up, “All of you. Two, apologize to Five. Five, it was a mistake so stop acting like he did it on purpose. If we’re ever going to be a team we need to work together, not fight each other like rabid animals. Everyone get cleaned up, we have dinner soon.”

His hands are still shaking, but he leans down and- as gently as he can- hoists Seven up and onto her feet and then pulls her out of the locker room and towards the bedrooms.

“Thank you.” She says quietly to his back, voice full of wonder.

His chest puffs up with pride. His hands stop shaking as he loosens his grip on her elbow to take her hand instead.

She squeezes it as she quickens her pace just enough to keep pace with him.

She smiles up at him, and he smiles down at her, and behind them the thundering feet of their siblings tells him that they actually listened.

++

One doesn’t want a name. His name was One, that’s the name Dad gave him and he should be grateful for it.

He shouldn’t want a name.

To want a name would be to defy dad and to defy dad….

But he looks at Three- Allison- grinning and laughing, and Two-Diego- smug. And Ben and Klaus and Frank all smiling to themselves, proud, numb, and fondly-annoyed respectively.

And Vanya, quiet little Vanya, with her chest puffed out and her smile beaming.

He shouldn’t want a name but….

Vanya takes his hand and she smiles at Mom, and it’s so much nicer to call her Vanya than Seven, even in his head.

“What about One?” she asks, and her eyes are so big and so kind.

Mom smiles, soft and kind and gentle and good, and leans down to whisper quietly in Vanya’s ear.

Vanya’s face splits into an even bigger grin as she turns so they’re facing.

“Luther.” She says, then laughs, “I like it. Hi Luther.”

Warmth fills him and he squeezes her hand tighter in his, wants to wrap her up in his arms and hug her forever.

“Hi Vanya.”

He shouldn’t want a name.

But for the first time ever he feels like a person rather than a soldier.

One is the leader of the Umbrella Academy.

Luther is Vanya’s big brother.

He likes that more.

++

When Frank storms out of the dining room during lunch Allison is the only one to go after him, ignoring their father’s sharp demand for her to return to her seat.

Luther locks eyes with Vanya across the table and they both quietly go back to eating.

Allison trudges back into the house an hour later, shoes muddy, eyes red-rimmed.

“He left me…” she says quietly as she goes up the stairs, not even noticing her gawking siblings in the foyer. “He left without me.”

Vanya reaches out as if to comfort her but Luther grabs her hand and squeezes it.

Allison goes to her room and shuts the door.

The next day Diego doesn’t say a word, rumored to silence.

The day after that Klaus is bleeding from a split lip from a too hard slap.

Ben is crying in his room and Diego out for blood after harsh insults had been traded back and forth.

Vanya huddled small and unnoticeable at the bottom of the stairs shaking after all those awful things hissed at her.

Luther waits for Allison to come near him and he grabs her by the arm.

“Stop this.” He tells her, firm and commanding, “You’re hurting the team.”

She was hurting Vanya. Luther couldn’t stand for that.

“Fuck off.” She hisses, and he can see the rumor on the tip of her tongue so he squeezes her arm hard enough for her to wince.

“I won’t ask you again Three. Have your little temper tantrum but keep the others out of it.”

He lets her go and she stomps off.

He turns and Vanya is hovering in the doorway, watching him with those big sad eyes.

“Are you hungry?” she asks him, and he smiles.

++

He catches her in all corners of the house before missions.

In the med bay practicing her stitches on a little cloth doll or arranging the shelves of bandages in easy reach of her short arms.

In the kitchen blending nutritious shakes or piling up sandwiches or filling ice packs and heating hot water bottles.

In the control room, eyes glued to monitors and ears trained on police scanners, pen in hand as she scrawls out notes in her own little blue notebook.

He hears her too, wherever he goes.

In her bedroom, pouring over a new piece on her violin and muttering to herself as she scratches notes onto her sheet music.

In the library, dropping heavy stacks of books onto the tables with enough force to hear it across the manor.

Over the comms after they’re all fifteen, quiet but firm as she warns Diego about the man around the corner with the AK, or ordering Allison to stop a fleeing perp. 

His siblings listen to her, which seems to surprise her as much as it does Dad.

He’s looking at her more often than he did before, and not with his usual indifferent and oftentimes cold sneer.

It makes something in his chest puff up with pride, to see his sister being acknowledged.

Things aren’t perfect, they’ll never be. They won’t ever be a real team, not like Dad wants them to be. Two and Three are angry and Four is drifting farther away by the day and Six is shrinking in on himself even more than usual but…

But Vanya is apart of it all now. Where before they barely glanced at her now they look to her for guidance. Now they thank her after missions and let her help them during training.

They aren’t family, they aren’t even really friends. They’re grudging teammates, and that’s enough for Luther.

Especially when Vanya smiles, bright as anything, eyes sharp and focused, clutching her notebook tight to her chest.

++

Ben dies. And that is the final straw.

Luther can hear Diego’s awful wailing sobs through the walls long after the boy had shattered his bedroom window and run.

Vanya, huddled up in his bed that night in his arms with her head tucked under his chin, cries quietly and Luther holds her closer.

He can hear Allison in the room next to his, her fingers tapping Morse code into the wall trying to speak to a boy that’s been gone for years.

Klaus is quiet. Luther’s not even sure he’s still in the house.

By the end of the week Allison will have gone too, though her exit is somewhere between Diego’s violent escape and Klaus’ silent slip. She carries her suitcase through the house so everyone can see her but does not say a word. She does not say goodbye. The big front door slams behind her.

Luther looks down at Vanya standing next to him, the sad tilt to her head, and he reaches down to take her hand.

“You won’t leave will you?” he asks her

She shakes her head, squeezes his hand, and pulls him back up to their rooms.

He tries not to think about how quiet the house is.

++

Luther is big and strong, but he is not invulnerable. His skin still splits. His body bleeds. His bones break.

He is learning this lesson thoroughly his eighteenth year.

With the rest of the Umbrella Academy either dead or gone, it is up to Number One to save the day by himself, and that is no easy feat.

Even with Vanya in his ear giving advice and orders and help, he is only one man- one boy.

He’s not sure he’s going to make it to nineteen.

But he can’t die, can’t leave Vanya alone, so he has to push through, has to persevere.

Neither of them are expecting their father to join them for breakfast one morning late June, or the news he brings them.

“I have decided to rethink my stance on Number Seven’s abilities, given the drastic increase in your focus and dedication and the need for backup on Number One’s part. You shall cease taking your pills at once and we shall begin your training thereafter.”

He leaves the room before they can question him.

Luther’s head is swimming and beside him Vanya has gone worryingly pale. He grips his spoon so tight the metal snaps in half.

Abilities? That meant she had powers right? But how? Why? After all this time?

He looks to Vanya, and even though she’s grown so much since they were children she’s still so much smaller than him. She looks frail compared to him, weak where he is strong.

He cannot picture her with powers, certainly not any kind of power their father had seen fit to hide from her.

She reaches out to grip his hand so hard her knuckles are white. If he were a normal person it might have hurt. But it doesn’t, so he lets her hold onto him and tries to keep his hands from shaking.

When he was ten and struggling to control his strength it had been Vanya who had stayed with him in the training room for hours and coached him through it. Now it’s his turn to be there for her.

He doesn’t know what their future will bring, but he knows they will face it together.

++

“Deep breath V, let’s try again.”

“Why can’t I just keep using my violin?” she snaps, eyes glowing a fierce and furious white that only serves to highlight how pale she is with exertion.

Ever since she got off of those pills, not only does his little sister have abilities, she also has an unending source of sass and annoyance.

He guesses that a decade of being emotionally numb has resulted in it all coming out at once. It can be hard to deal with, her harsh mood swings, but he loves her so he makes do.

Besides, every time she snaps at him is almost immediately followed by a teary apology and an intense cuddle session. (Luther likes the cuddle sessions, it’s the only time he gets physical affection)

Lately Vanya’s been even moodier than usual due to their most recent training regimen. Dad wants her to try to use her powers without using her violin as a conduit, which they all know she can do but with considerably less control and considerably more collateral damage.

It leaves her drained afterwards, pale and shaking and weak. He’s had to carry her back to her room too many times to count. But this is necessary, she won’t always be able to have her violin handy. She knows this too, wants to try, but it doesn’t make her any less annoyed with the situation.

“Let’s try again, ok?” he asks, voice gentle.

She sighs, her eyes glowing whiter before they close, her hands coming up and her stance widening as she focuses.

Luther holds his breath and watches, waiting. He can’t hear the world like she can- can’t hear every individual heartbeat, the hum of the lights, the distant traffic and even more distant birds- so he has no idea what it is she’s tapping into. But after a long minute of silence- for him at least- he finally sees the buildup of energy start to form around her.

It’s wavering, like waves in the ocean, threatening to drown her if she’s not careful, but she holds firm, hand shaking and breath coming faster as the power starts to get itself under control, steadying and solidifying. 

Luther picks up one of the heavy weights off the floor and throws it at her.

It crashes into an invisible barrier of power and goes flying off to the left.

He throws another, this one she stops midair and swings back at him, smashing into the target dummy to his right. He throws another, and another, and another. None of them get anywhere near her, caught up in the swell of her power and spinning around her. She stands up straighter, and with a harsh cry they all go flying in different directions as the bubble of her power bursts.

Vanya falls to her knees and breathes shakily.

Luther kneels next to her, hand on her back and rubbing soothingly, “Good job V, that was great.”

She smiles weakly at him, her eyes back to their usual warm brown. “You owe me donuts.” She whispers

He picks her up, carrying her gently in his arms, “And donuts you will have.”

She rests her head on his shoulder, breathing slowly. Luther holds her even closer, smiling down at her with pride.

++

It takes him a long time to notice. Far longer than it probably would have taken anyone else, but in his defense, he was in denial.

It starts on missions, both of them covered in blood- most of it not theirs- walking back to the car or the jet that will take them home. Vanya- Number Seven on missions, the White Violin to the media- stops before she gets in, eyes hazy and distant on the horizon before he squeezes her hand and she joins him.

At Griddy’s, on the nights they sneak out to gorge themselves on donuts and shitty coffee. She stares out the window of their booth at the streets and the few people that pass by, zoned completely out of the conversation until the waitress returns with a refill.

In the house, standing by the windows in the front room, hand hovering over the doorknob, chandelier shaking.

He doesn’t notice any of this for a long time. Not until he finds the packed duffel bag under her bed and the yellow envelope full of cash and passports and IDs for someone named Vanya Hallaway, his sister’s picture smiling up at him.

Vanya stares at him from her doorway, expression blank in a way it has not been since they were eighteen and she was still on the pills. He’s still knelt by her bed, holding the evidence of her desires in his hands.

“You want to leave?” he asks, isn’t sure what his voice is doing but whatever it is it makes her flinch.

“We can’t keep living like this Luther.” She says softly, but her eyes are hard, “Don’t you want to see the world?”

“We’ve seen the world.” He protests

“No we’ve seen terrorists trying to blow up monuments. When was the last time you went farther than Griddy’s for fun?” 

Luther opens his mouth, closes it again. He doesn’t have an answer for her.

“Open the other envelope.” She asks, voice going even softer.

The second yellow envelope is full of even more cash and another set of passports and IDs, but these have his own face smiling up at him alongside the name Luther Hallaway. He looks at them for a long minute before looking up at his sister.

“Where would we even go?” he asks quietly, unsure.

She shrugs, “Anywhere. Where do you want to go?”

He thinks of the Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. that they’d passed a few times. He thinks of the beaches he’s only ever seen from the sky or piers. He thinks of the beautiful mountain paths he’d seen on the covers of some of the informational magazines they’d read growing up.

Could they really just go? Just walk out the front door and not come back? What about their mission?

“What about dad?” is the first thing out of his mouth, but he regrets it instantly when her face hardens and her smile drops into a scowl.

“He’s not our dad.” She hisses, eyes glowing white and a fizzle of power shattering the lightbulb above them, “Dads don’t do what he’s done.”

He knows she’s right. Has always known, in some quiet part of his brain that he’d been trying to drown out for so long.

Dads didn’t torture them in order to train their powers. Dads didn’t hit them. Dads didn’t drug them.

But if he wasn’t their dad then why has Luther stayed all this time? Why has Luther let him get away with doing so many awful things to them?

Vanya comes closer, kneeling down beside him and taking his hands, forcing him to drop the envelope, “Please Luther, let’s get out of here.”

Luther opens his mouth-

The mission alarm blares out across the mansion, the lights flashing red.

“Number One, Number Seven, to the car, now!” Their father’s voice shouts over the intercom.

Vanya sighs, standing, “After this is over, we’ll go, ok?”

He doesn’t answer. Stands on legs that feel like jelly and goes to his room in order to change into his mission uniform in a daze.

He’s still thinking about it on the car ride to the airport, doesn’t listen to a word dad says about the mission, doesn’t even know where they’re going.

Vanya says nothing to him when they finally get there, to a dark and imposing castle on a cliffside overlooking a stormy sea. She gets out of the car first while dad is still giving orders, not looking back as she sends a burst of energy out of her body that shatters the gate door.

Luther follows her, tries to clear his head, tries to focus, but all he can think about is the possibility of freedom, of living a real life somewhere with his sister.

He doesn’t notice when Vanya turns left, too focused on his thoughts as he continues on through the hall, and when he finally does realize he’s alone it’s too late.

They come at him all at once, six men heavily armed. Luther has always been strong, hard to beat down, but he’s never been invulnerable. 

He cries out for Vanya, not sure if he wants her to come save him or to run somewhere safe. Probably somewhere safe.

He kills four of the men but more pour in from a side door. Another gunshot pierces the air and this time Luther falls to his knees. Everything hurts. His vision is spinning, going black around the edges.

He hears a scream, a ripple in the air that curves around him like a warm hug, holding him safely. 

He blacks out.

++

Vanya is staring at him from the doorway but he does not turn away from the window to see her.

He cannot bear to see that look in her eyes, horror and pity and pain all swirling together as her eyes flash white.

She has not been able to look him in the face since it happened, the procedure. Luther can’t blame her, he hasn’t been able to look in a mirror since then either.

But he can still see it, feel it.

His body feels foreign and strange, not his own anymore. He doesn’t recognize his hands when he looks at them. He’s finally gotten a coat- courtesy of Mom- that covers all of his new grotesqueness.

He’s too big now, too wide, too hairy. More ape than man. He’s a monster, and he can see that every time Vanya doesn’t look at him.

“Luther…” she starts, voice whisper quiet like it was when they were little and she hadn’t felt welcome among them.

“Don’t.” he snaps, big shoulders curling inwards, fists shaking, “Just don’t, V.”

She steps slowly into the room and lays one tiny hand on his back. He’d always been bigger than her, but before they’d fit neatly together, his chin on the top of her head and his arms wrapped easily around her. Now she barely reaches his chest and he can’t curl his arms enough to hold her right.

“We can still-“

“Where are we supposed to go now V?” he demands, turning finally to face her, watch her flinch back from him, “Where can I go when I look like this?” He gestures to the unnatural shape of his body, misjudges the new length of his arms and sends a vase flying across the room to shatter against the wall. 

Vanya flinches again, and that, more than anything, is the worst part of all of this. How afraid she is of him now.

He shrinks back as much as he can, withdrawing into himself, turning back to the window.

She grabs his arm with surprising force, stopping him, and when he looks at her, her eyes are blazing white.

“Stop that. Stop acting like you’re some monster now. You’re still you Luther, you’re still my brother and I love you.”

He scoffs, “Don’t act like you’re not afraid of me.”

Her eyebrows furrow, “Afraid? Why the hell I would I be afraid you?”

“The way you won’t even look at me-“

“I can’t look at you because I’m so fucking angry Luther. At Reginald. At Pogo. At myself. I shouldn’t have left you alone, none of this would have happened if I-“ her eyes close suddenly and her breath hitches. Luther knows the sight of an impending breakdown when he sees one.

He moves on instinct, a decade of comforting Vanya after nightmares and fights with the others kicking in before he can think. He pulls her close, ignoring the wrongness of his body in favor of trying to hold her as close as he can. She curls in close to him, fisting the front of his coat in her fingers and sobbing into his chest.

“This isn’t your fault.” He whispers, as she cries, 

“Yes it is.” She cries, “I wasn’t there. I don’t know how you can even look at me now. How you’re not angry…”

He closes his eyes as tears well up. 

“I could never be angry with you Vanya. I love you.”

She just cries harder. Luther holds her.

Nothing is figured out yet, nothing is solved, but right now, Luther has Vanya in his arms, and that’s all he could ask for.

++

Two years later, Dad tells them that there is a mission he wants to send Luther on, that he wants him to go the moon, duration unknown, to keep any eye on things.

Luther knows, somewhere deep inside of him, that the mission isn’t real. His father simply can’t bear the sight of him.

Vanya nearly shakes the house apart when he relates it to her, furious and fuming and raring to go.

He puts one hand on her shoulder, as gently as he can- he’s finally getting the hang of his new body- to keep her seated on his bed, shaking his head.

“I’m going V. I… There’s nothing else I can do.”

“We can leave!” she hisses, then her face crumples and she’s grabbing desperately for his other hand with both of hers, “Please Luther, please let’s just leave. We’ll figure everything out, I promise.”

“I can’t Vanya. I just…”

Her face hardens into stone, into ice, her eyes going that particular shade of white that means she’s not entirely present anymore, it’s her anger in charge, her fury.

“Fine.” She snaps, an echo to her voice that sends every small item in his room floating, “Be a coward then, just run and hide. I won’t stay here anymore; I refuse to stay in this house with that monster.”

She stomps out of his room and slams the door, everything falls back to the floor with a crash and Luther is left to stare after her.

The next morning, there is a slip of paper with an address for an apartment across town and the envelope full of a new life. 

Vanya is gone.

++

He thinks about going after her every day for the next six months. Thinks about going to this place, her apartment- their apartment- and starting a new life.

But every time he opens the front door all he can see is the wrongness of his hands, the way pedestrians on the street stop to stare at him.

He can’t be normal, not anymore.

He closes the door every time and goes back to his room.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever see her again, his little sister, but he does.

On the day of the launch she’s there in the living room. There’s still a deep anger in her face, but also a sadness, a pain.

She holds up a small tablet with a wave.

“I had Pogo design it for me. It’s wired to send messages directly to the com unit you’ll have upstairs, Reginald won’t have access to our line. You can write me whenever, in fact, you better write me every damn night to let me know you’re ok. Ok?”

He smiles and hugs her. She wraps her arms around him as best she can.

“Ok.”

“Come home soon, ok?”

“Ok.”

When he’s up on the moon a few hours later, looking down on the world he’s never really seen before, the first message on his computer is a message from Vanya.

‘I love you’

++

Luther leans back in his bunk and scoffs as he reads through the next page of the book, rolling his eyes.

Vanya was right, if Allison was going to hire a ghostwriter to create an auto-biography, she should have found some way to keep them from reading it to see all the bullshit.

Allison Hargreeves’ tell all novel, ‘Inside the Umbrella Academy: I Heard A Rumor’ is a ridiculously outrageous clusterfuck of contradictory stories, completely false recollections, and blatant lies.

The whole thing makes Number Three out to be some kind of innocent little angel, the only girl in the house- keeping with the cover story of Seven being adopted later in life- suffering from their constant bullying and torment.

She goes on for ages about her precious Frank, another innocent little creature turned dark and cruel by the others, by their horrible father. (Luther will not argue her that point). How he was dead, really, because there was no way he would have willingly left her behind.

Luther is torn between being pissed at her and pitying her.

How empty is her lavish, movie-star lifestyle that this is what she has to do now. How lonely must she be to try and convince the whole world that she was once loved so much.

Vanya’s message lights up the screen of his computer, ‘It’s honestly pathetic. She really thinks she’s so much better than us’

Luther thinks of Three as a child, so much personality and noise in such a small body, so much confidence and pride. There was a sharpness in her that had only gotten worse after Frank had left, sharp and bitter and furious.

He pities Allison, really, but he can also never quite forgive her for just how needlessly cruel she had been to Vanya- to all of them- in her teenage years. 

‘Did you get to the part about Ben?’

God Luther has little doubt this is going to make him furious. 

++

It’s Christmas, which means Vanya has broken her very strict ‘I will not step foot in that hellhole again’ rule to break into the Mansion to make use of Pogo’s equipment to contact Luther.

Luther sure is glad for it, grinning wide-enough to split his face in half when he sees his precious little sister on the screen.

“How have you been?” he asks, committing every change in her face to his memory.

She’s cut her hair short, no longer hiding behind it, and there’s that special kind of tired that comes from doing something you enjoy.

Her smile is brilliant.

“Good. Lessons have finally started picking up this last month. You should hear this one girl, Lucy, she’s going to write symphonies one day, I know it.”

“And the orchestra?”

“They’re holding auditions for second chair next month, Stephen’s retiring, and I think I may have a shot at it.”

“I think they’d be stupid not to give it to you.”

She laughs, such a bright, brilliant, unafraid thing.

“Well, that makes two of us.” She stares at him too, her eyes so intent on his face, “How are you?”

“I’m….” how to put any of the things he’s been feeling into words, “I miss you.”

“I miss you too. How much longer are you up there?”

“I don’t know. Dad- Reginald-“ he corrects quickly when her face spasms, “Hasn’t said.”

The frown is back, and it hasn’t left. Her eyes don’t look as bright through the screen, once they start flickering white, but he knows what it should look like with his eyes closed.

“Of course he didn’t.” she says bitterly, then takes a deep breath, letting her power drain away, “Well, however long you’re up there, I’ll be waiting down here. Whenever you’re ready Luther, there’s a place for you here.”

“Vanya…”

“There will always be a place for you here.” She insists.

Something catches in his throat and tears burn in his eyes.

“I love you sis.” He says, hopes she knows just how very much he loves her.

“I love you too. Merry Christmas Luther.”

“Merry Christmas Vanya.”

++

Luther should not be surprised, but he is.

He had a direct line of communication with dad- REGINALD- and he should have been the first to know.

But no, he’d found out from Vanya.

Vanya who had messaged him as soon as she’d gotten home from a late night of practice and seen the news on the tv. 

Vanya had been the one to tell him that their father- that Reginald- was dead.

He doesn’t waste anymore time with the stupid procedures Pogo had set up. Just hops into the return flight and heads home.

Vanya is the only one there when he arrives, in the middle of the night two days later. She’s waiting on the front steps, swaddled in an oversized blanket she must have brought from her place. (There was no such comfort in this house)

His body moves before his brain does, and between one blink and the next he’s holding her close, squeezing his little sister to his chest and holding her as tight as he can.

“Hey you.” She laughs into his shirt, clinging just as hard, “Let’s get some donuts.”

Donuts, sound amazing.

++

Luther does not move far from Vanya’s side during the funeral. Hovers like an oversized shadow wherever she goes.

If he were a good son, he’d probably be up in Reginald’s study, or his bedroom, looking for clues about his death.

But he had spent the last four years on the moon and the last dredges of his respect and love for the man had shriveled up in space. Let his secrets die with him.

Vanya makes a valiant effort to speak to the others- especially Klaus, who is so very quiet and pale, more ghost than human, even despite the frivolous way he dresses himself- but they do not make much of an effort themselves.

Allison looks down her noses at them like she had when they were small, lips pursed in a permanent sneer. 

Luther worries she’ll try something with Vanya, but the first time Three shows her fangs Vanya sweetly asks about how her divorce is going and Allison shuts right up and leaves the room.

Diego is broody and distant, and he hardly talks to anyone in more than clipped, one or two word responses. 

The both of them stare at Vanya with cautious eyes when her eyes flash white and the world shakes around her- she’s an unknown to them, a threat- but Klaus laughs brightly, the first sound he’s made since he’s arrived, before he devolves into hissing at something to his left.

Honestly, Luther is just hoping to get this whole thing over with so he can finally think about starting a life for himself.

Which is exactly when the sky opens up and Frank drops out into the backyard, not a day older than when he left.

Allison makes a horrible whimpering noise, like a kicked dog. Diego’s stutter is back tenfold as he tries to ask questions. Klaus is silent.

Luther looks to Vanya, finds her head tilted curiously, eyes narrowed and flashing dangerously.

Something is happening, that much is for sure, but Luther doesn’t have time to ask her what’s wrong before Vanya throws her arms out and sends Frank flying into the far wall.

++

Luther sits in the infirmary bed as Mom helps stich shut the bleeding wound on his forehead.

The afternoon had been a clusterfuck.

After Vanya had thrown Frank, Allison had snapped out of her stupor and attacked Vanya, which had meant Luther had had to pry her off, which had set Diego off into a roaring frenzy of throwing knives.

Klaus had stared blankly at everything, and then laughed.

In the end, Luther had managed to restrain both Allison and Vanya while Diego had tended to their lost brother.

Mom had suggested they all go inside for snacks and then insisted on patching up Luther.

He can hear yelling downstairs- Allison- and screaming upstairs- Klaus- and furious pacing somewhere down the hall- Diego. Vanya enters the room like a shadow and leans against the wall.

“Why?” he asks her, to the point, wary of the way her eyes are still flaring white

Something has set her off, and if she gets much angrier she will lose control and even he will become a target. 

She tilts her head to stare at him before making a conscious effort to deepen her breathing and reign in her power.

“His energy, his life force,” she shakes her head, “It was bad Luther. Whatever he is, he’s a threat, to me, to you, to all of us.” She’s quiet for a long minute, just staring at the floor, “I lost control and then my powers attacked him. That has to mean something.”

“Maybe, we’ll stay alert, now come on.”

He leads her back down to the kitchen where Allison is still shouting at Frank, who sits on the kitchen counter looking unbothered.

(Save for the ever so slight twitch of his left eyebrow)

“Three that’s enough.” Luther snaps, and she whirls on him

“Don’t you dare order me around!” she snarls, “I’m not one of dad’s little soldiers anymore!”

Vanya’s eyes flash white, “Watch it Allison.” She warns

Frank looks Vanya up and down with narrowed eyes, “Huh, so you weren’t kidding, she really does have powers. Also, your ghostwriter sucked.”

“It wasn’t a ghostwriter!” she hisses, and her lips twitch like she’s going to Rumor them into believing her.

Vanya’s eyes flash again and Luther reaches over to squeeze her hand in warning. She takes another very deep breath and they go back to brown. Allison glances at her quickly before copying her, trying to reign in her temper.

Luther clears his throat to get everyone’s attention. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Diego stalk into the room, Klaus hovering in the doorway behind him.

“Alright everyone, let’s focus. We still have the will reading to do, see what D-what Reginald left us.”

If any of the others notice the correction or the way he’s addressed the man, none of them comment. 

Diego snorts, “As if the old bastard left us anything.”

“Well he had to leave it all to someone.” Allison snaps, “And we know it wasn’t mom.”

Diego twitches like he might go looking for her, but then settles. Shrugs his agreement. 

Klaus giggles again, a little madly. Vanya turns to him, “Klaus, what do you think?” she asks, voice soft, like she’s talking to a small child- like one of her students.

He giggles again, his smile more manic than anything, “Probably donated it all to his nazi friends.” He says, voice rough and scratchy from years of disuse and screaming in equal proportion. 

Vanya snorts, nodding, “I’m sure.”

“Regardless,” Luther says loudly, nudging her gently with his elbow and resisting a smile when she sticks her tongue out at him, “We need to get that settled today. And, Frank, I think we deserve an explanation.”

They all turn to Frank, Allison already glaring- her hand twitching to reach out to him, to hold him close- and Frank looks at them impassively, face carefully blank.

“I don’t see why that’s necessary.” He starts, voice so very droll

Allison’s lips twitch, with a rumor or with emotion Luther isn’t sure, but Vanya steps forward before she can.

“At the very least Allison deserves something from you. So suck up your stupid pride and get it over with.” She warns, voice icy.

Allison stares at her, wide-eyed, before looking to Frank.

She looks suddenly so very young. “Please Frank just… please.”

Frank stares at her for a long moment before his resolve visibly crumbles. “Ok.” He says quietly, and then he tells them about the Apocalypse.

++

Vanya sits on Luther’s bed, lips pursed, pensive.

Luther putters about his room tidying up for lack of better things to do.

Pogo had asked for a little bit of time to ready the paperwork for the will reading- looking honestly surprised that any of them were still in the house to hear it- so they’d all dispersed throughout the house to not have to look at each other while they waited.

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Vanya finally speaks after nearly an hour of silence, “I’m the one who will destroy the world.”

Luther tries and fails to keep a handle on his strength, splintering the little wooden plane he’d been moving into a thousand small pieces. “We don’t know that.” He says quietly, wishes he believed it.

He doesn’t have to look at her to feel her eyebrow raising, “Don’t we? You heard Frank. He appeared outside the Academy to find all of you- minus me- dead. And if he’s right about the cause of death-“

“There are others like us V.” he snaps, brushing splinters off his gloves, “It could be-“

“Then where was I Luther? Why would you be there and not me?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that. Honestly, he thinks she might be right. Frank’s story painted a very clear picture in his head.

Luther’s big body had been the only one Frank could identify- and even that had been hard with how much he’d changed since Frank last saw him- clear of the rubble the rest of the city had become. It was clear that it had been a knife that had killed him.

The rest of the siblings- Allison, Diego, Klaus- had been horribly disfigured, torn apart and twisted things, buried half under the city.

Vanya hadn’t been there, or if she was, she was buried even deeper than the others.

Luther doesn’t think she was there at all, and he can more than fill in the blanks.

There was a fight on the street outside the Academy, Luther and Vanya versus Allison and Diego, Klaus playing witness. Things had gotten heated as they always did, and Diego had lashed out without thinking. Maybe he’d done it alone, throwing his knives, maybe Allison had helped- keeping Vanya back, urging Diego on- but the result was the same. Luther had died and Vanya had lost control and brought the whole world down on top of them.

He knew she was capable of it, there was a reason Reginald had been so afraid of her powers when she was only a child, a reason he’d decided to lock them away. Of all of them, Vanya is the one with the ability to destroy the world.

“I don’t know.” He chooses to say instead, because confirming it is impossible. He can’t… “But now that we know there’s an apocalypse coming, we can work to prevent it, right?”

Vanya raises one eyebrow at him, unimpressed, “You really wanna go into mission mode right now? Luther I thought we were done with all of this.”

“What do you want us to do Vanya? Just ignore the end of the world?”

“Yes!” she hisses, eyes flaring white for the millionth time today. If they’re not careful Frank’s ten day warning will be shortened to a matter of hours, “Forget this Luther, forget them. Let’s just get out of here, see the world. You, me, Klaus. Frank’s apocalypse won’t happen if we’re not even here!”

It sounds too good to be true. Too wonderful. Everything Luther has ever wanted, to go away with his little sister and really see the world for the first time, to help Klaus like they’d never been able to as children. To be normal.

But Luther looks at his hands, and the wrongness of his body in the mirror, and cannot imagine there is anywhere he can go where he can pretend he is normal.

Vanya is in front of him before the tears have even started to fall, wrapping up one of his big hands in both of hers, so very small in comparison to him.

“Hey. Hey Luther, look at me. Who cares what other people think, if they look. They can look all they like it won’t matter. As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters. Please Luther, trust me.”

“I always trust you V.” he says instantly, an inherent truth of his life. Vanya would always be trustworthy.

“Then let’s go.”

Luther stares at her for a long minute before he nods. He’s not sure if she’s right, but her sheer will power for it to be ok is enough. Luther will let his little sister take care of things for now. And maybe, one day, they really will be ok.

++

Klaus was half right, Reginald did donate half of his money to ‘Foundations’ that his friends run who are almost all certainly nazis.

But they do have trusts, all seven of them- though Ben’s is clearly going to remain closed forever. It’s a sizable amount of money, more than enough to start a hundred new lives.

The morning after the will reading Luther slams the trunk of Vanya’s sedan hard enough for the metal to dent to keep the eight million suitcases she’d packed from spilling out. The right half of the back seat is piled with snacks and a cooler full of drinks and the left side has the slumped form of their half-conscious brother on his second day of Vanya-enforced sobriety.

Vanay sits in the passenger seat with a map bigger than she is open over the dashboard and a red sharpie, circling places they’ll stop and see.

She looks up at him when he squeezes himself into the driver’s seat, struggling to contain her grin.

“We need to get a bigger car.” He grumbles, shifting fruitlessly to get comfortable before cranking up the AC so Klaus can keep cool- he sweats a lot when on a come-down.

“You ready?” Vanya asks him, smiling fully now.

Inside the Academy, Frank is brainstorming with Allison and Diego about possible causes for the end of the world. They’re investigating Reginald’s death and his research and everything else. Luther is Number One, he should be with them. He should be leading them on a final mission to save the world from the Apocalypse.

Instead he smiles at his little sister and puts the car into drive, “Let’s go.”

There’s a world out there, Luther hears, and it’s supposed to be pretty cool. And he’s got his little sister by his side to see it with him, and a little brother they’re going to help. He’s not sure if it’s going to be ok in the end, but he’s going to at least try.

They pull out onto the road and start driving into the future. 

(In a week and a half, the world will not end. Luther will be on a beach in Florida sipping a margarita while watching the ghost of Ben splash water into Klaus’ face with a laugh that none of them have heard in too many years. Vanya will sit next to him wearing sunglasses too big for her face and a grin bright enough to chase away every fear Luther will ever have. He’ll take off the coat he’s hidden behind for the last seven years and only look at the people around them twice. Nothing else matters, with his little sister there by his side.)


End file.
